


Echoes From the Past

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:00:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2570756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After four years, Blair finally sorts through the things salvaged from the warehouse where he had lived...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes From the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sentinel Thursday prompt 'fog'

Echoes From the Past

by Bluewolf

There were one or two things Blair had salvaged from the burned-out ruin of his unmourned warehouse 'home' that he had pushed into a drawer in his small room under the stair, meaning to check on them later and - with one exception - dump if they were beyond redemption.

'Later' had become 'even later' and then 'even more later' as Blair found himself sucked deeper and deeper into Jim's 'Dirty Harry world'. Keeping up with all the essentials of his life left him almost no time for what he had sometimes begun to consider non-essentials, like eating or sleeping, let alone looking through the damaged debris of his life pre-Jim.

Although in hindsight he regretted not wording his press conference slightly differently so that the word 'fraudulent' had remained unspoken, although he regretted that he would never now have the letters 'PhD' after his name, as he entered the loft a week after destroying his academic career he had no real regrets.

Much to his surprise, William Ellison had gone to bat for him, employing his lawyer to sue Berkshire Publishing for releasing excerpts of something that Blair had categorically told their editor was not for publication - Berkshire's calls were routinely recorded (to make sure they had an exact record of anything had been discussed over the phone) and the firm of Johnstone, Robertson & Black had been quick to subpoena the tape for the relevant day, so they had proof that Blair had not agreed to publication.

In a meeting with Norman Black, Blair had explained that what Berkshire had been sent was the first draft of a novel, written experimentally in thesis format, and that without his knowledge his mother had sent it to Sid Graham, a personal friend, not as a submission but for his professional opinion on it, possibly for a few tips on correcting grammar, etc.

It wasn't his fault that Graham had assumed it really was his PhD dissertation. But as a dissertation it was indefensible, because the 'facts' about his fictional sentinel's abilities were made up; and he had used Jim Ellison's name on it for the first draft purely because, in the format he had used, he felt it had made it easier for him to develop the fictional details. He had planned to change all the names when he second drafted it. Black considered he had a good case, but it would take some time for everything to be finalised.

Meanwhile, with just over a month until the new intake at the Police Academy started training, Blair was basically marking time, relaxing, catching up on his sleep... and he had decided that now was as good a time as any to go through those smoke-and-water damaged items he had salvaged, and see if any of them were worth keeping.

A box of tribal artifacts... He had forgotten he had those. The box itself looked distinctly fourth-hand but the contents were pristine. He fingered them nostalgically, remembering expeditions when he was still a student... He sighed and put the box on his bedside table. Keeping them would, in a sense, be rubbing salt into a raw wound, but they were a memento of a time when it had seemed as if everything in his chosen career was going smoothly, a time before he had found Burton's Sentinels of Paraguay and been lured onto the path that had led him to here... An old, already well-worn before the fire, copy of The Wind in the Willows. It had originally belonged to Naomi's mother; discovering how much Blair liked stories, she had read it to him when Naomi took him to visit her parents, and even sometimes left him there while she went off to someplace where children were not welcome. When asked what he wanted for his eighth birthday, he said he wanted his own copy of the book, and she had given her copy to Blair, who valued it all the more because it had been hers, even though he hadn't read it - hadn't had time to read it - since he was twenty. Now he checked it carefully. Some of the pages were water-marked, but it was still readable, and he sighed with relief.

Two other books were in worse condition, and without any hesitation he put them in the trash. Old favorites, yes, but these copies had no sentimental value; if he wanted to replace them, he could.

And then there was a photo album.

He opened it carefully, and began to look through the photos, shaking his head unhappily as he did.

"What are you doing, Chief?"

He jumped; caught up in the past as he had been, Blair hadn't heard Jim come in.

"Something I really should have done four years ago, but there never seemed to be enough time... just checking one or two things I brought from the warehouse."

Jim crossed to look over Blair's shoulder. He touched the book. "This has seen better days." But his voice was gentle.

"It was old when I got it," Blair said. "I'm at least the third generation to read it, possibly the fourth... It never actually belonged to Naomi, though; I don't know if she ever read it. My grandmother gave it to me when I was eight. It had originally belonged to _her_ mother, who died when Grandma was just a child. She rescued it when her father was clearing out her mother's things, wanting to have something of her mother's.

"Yes, it's got some water damage, but it's still readable, and I want to keep it. It's all I have of Grandma's. Naomi was - is - like her grandfather; 'I have the memories, I don't need physical keepsakes'. 'Material possessions just tie you down.' Even though she has photos of me as a child... and I wish she didn't!"

Jim nodded sympathetically. Family ties had sat lightly on his shoulders pretty well all his life, but he could recognize Blair's devotion to his family, even though Naomi seemed to be the only relative he had left; he heard the affection in Blair's voice as he spoke of his grandmother, and knew that she had been an important person in Blair's life.

He ignored the box; while it was badly marked, it was still intact, so its contents were presumably all right. He turned his attention to the photo album.

"But you've kept photos too?"

"Not many. I did try to get some, every expedition I was on, though a lot of the time it wasn't possible to get photos of the actual _people_ \- a lot of tribes, even ones that have had a fair amount of exposure to white men, are still surprisingly superstitious about having photos taken - they think that their souls are being stolen with the image. But I did get photos of a lot of the people I went on expeditions with, and the places...

"They're not all from expeditions though," Blair went on. "There are some from various places I visited when I was a child."

He turned pages, sometimes having to ease them apart where two had stuck together. Jim concentrated on the photos, frowning slightly; even he had problems making out many of the images, fogged as they were by a combination of age and water damage.

Towards the end of the album, the pages were less damaged and the photos were a little clearer. There was one of a group of people - Jim recognized a young, broadly smiling Naomi among them.

"Who are they?" he asked.

Blair looked at the photo. "I haven't the foggiest idea," he said. "It was a commune Naomi visited when I was... oh, four or five. I hadn't wanted to go to it - we'd been to a different commune a few months earlier, and I hated it, found it... thinking back as an adult, I'd say I found it oppressive, I'm not sure why. Anyway, she left me with Grandma that time, and when she came home she gave me that photo 'to let me see how much she'd enjoyed herself during her holiday there'. It persuaded me to go with her to one or two other communes, and they were all fine; I don't know what was wrong with the one I didn't like. Maybe it was because I was the only child there, apart from two or three babies, none of them old enough to walk.

"I only kept the photo because Naomi was in it. But I can understand now that it was a form of blackmail. And it worked because I never objected to going to a commune again."

He gave the photo one last look then closed the album and quietly, unhesitatingly, dropped it in the trash.


End file.
